Solo diving

[Standingbear56]

I'm not sure of your certification level, but I would say have AOW and Rescue under your belt with at least 100 dives after Rescue. If there was a rule of thumb or guideline to go by, I would say that is probably about right. Only you know your comfort level with different scenarios. How comfortable are you with losing your mask or regulator, then finding them and replacing and clearing? These are skills that you should be practicing whenever you dive (with a buddy), until they become second nature to you.

In the meantime, develop an extensive buddy list and whenever you want to go diving, go down the list until you find someone who can buddy with you. The longer your list, the better the chance you'll find a buddy on short notice. Fantasea Scuba in Port Charlotte has a new club that just started a couple months ago and meets the last Monday of each month. Start going to meetings and meet more divers. I live in Port Charlotte too, and know offhand at least 10 to 15 divers that live in the area who would be willing to buddy up. You probably know a lot of them already. Add me to your list too. I'm available some weekends, evenings, and also some days when I dive either during lunch or after work when I'm in the Venice vicinity.

I agree 100% with the above. However I would also add that you need a minimum of 100 hours total dive time in addition to the 100 dives. These should all be MINIMUMS. Then ask yourself "Do I think I'm ready". If the answer is yes, and not just due to not being able to find dive buddies, then proceed to take the Solo Diver course. Then take it SLOW from there, starting with easy dives to places you are already totally familiar with, and work your way from there. Have some buddies come down with you a few times and work out some "trapped diver" drills. Your buddies "snare" you with something like fishing line, and you handle it as if you were diving solo - they are only there for safety so you can see how you would do in a real life situation. These are only suggestions, but they come from experience.
Safe Diving,
George

 

[divedude1962]

I should think the only thing to be added to whats been said is to re-iterate the skill level needed. I do a lot of solo dives, simply due to not having buddies. And I'm very confident in my abilities. But note that is confidence not arrogance. I have never been shy about canceling a dive if there is a problem (weather,water, or me), and I don't solo dive in situations where I cannot make an uninterrupted normal ascent. In this regards I treat it the same as being on a buddy dive in a situation where my buddy might be too far away to assist: a normal ascent. This means usually shallower, and daylight, and not wrecks. Most boat operators I've been with won't let you in without a buddy anyway, and even when the ones who know me well enough to allow it, I usually opt for a buddy.

 

[tlawler]

I agree 100% with the above. However I would also add that you need a minimum of 100 hours total dive time in addition to the 100 dives. These should all be MINIMUMS. Then ask yourself "Do I think I'm ready". If the answer is yes, and not just due to not being able to find dive buddies, then proceed to take the Solo Diver course. Then take it SLOW from there, starting with easy dives to places you are already totally familiar with, and work your way from there. Have some buddies come down with you a few times and work out some "trapped diver" drills. Your buddies "snare" you with something like fishing line, and you handle it as if you were diving solo - they are only there for safety so you can see how you would do in a real life situation. These are only suggestions, but they come from experience.
Safe Diving,
George

Well, with the diving she is talking about, 100 hours would equate to about 50 Venice Beach sharks tooth dives. It consists of low vis, shallow water and usually calm conditions. Just about everyone I know that does this dive has done it solo at one time or another, even if they choose not to on a regular basis.

I'm intrigued by the Solo Diver certification. Beyond Rescue, I'm guessing that there is training in redundancy and a more earnest emphasis placed on self rescue. Are things like "trapped diver" drills incorporated in it? It would probably be a good course to have under one's belt, if even in today's litigious world it wouldn't be of actual value. Due to liability, most charters wouldn't honor it and you'd still wind up with insta-buddy.

 

[Standingbear56]

Well, with the diving she is talking about, 100 hours would equate to about 50 Venice Beach sharks tooth dives. It consists of low vis, shallow water and usually calm conditions. Just about everyone I know that does this dive has done it solo at one time or another, even if they choose not to on a regular basis.

I'm intrigued by the Solo Diver certification. Beyond Rescue, I'm guessing that there is training in redundancy and a more earnest emphasis placed on self rescue. Are things like "trapped diver" drills incorporated in it? It would probably be a good course to have under one's belt, if even in today's litigious world it wouldn't be of actual value. Due to liability, most charters wouldn't honor it and you'd still wind up with insta-buddy.

As far as the 100 hours dive time goes, I added that because many dives are way shorter than 1 hour, while others of course others are much longer. Again, this is just a suggestion for a minimum standard. You can have someone having 100 dives, but if they are only around 20 minutes long each, you can end up with only about 33 - 34 hours total dive time - certainly not enough for starting solo diving. Hence the 100 hour minimum.

The solo diver course is a good idea. It concentrates on self sufficiency, self rescue and redundancy of equipment. Plus there are are some areas, at least around my neck of the woods where they can kick you out of a dive site for diving solo if you don't have it.

Safe diving,
George

 

[Big G]

I'm a little surprised that nobody has said anything along the line of "diving alone is often better than diving with an inept stranger." When you buddy up with someone you just met on a dive boat, it's a crap shoot, folks. I've been with some great divers and there have been some I intentioanlly kept my distance from ... "same ocean, same day" as it is sometimes said. I can live with that ... pun intended. But as others have so wisely said, I keep it shallow and only in good conditions. The only times I have intentionally gone solo has been lobstering in the Keys in very shallow, reasonably clear water and keeping an even closer watch than ususal on depth, time and air supply.

 

[500 PSI]

Divedude you say it best: confidence in your ability & dive only in situations where you can make normal ascents. I 100% agree. I would also say making sure your dive gear is inspected and highly reliable which increases confidence. Is more diving better than less? Does practice tends to improve skills? Is diving in any water still and always will be ultimately an indiviual decision. Some divers are totally comfortable and calm in the UW environment and there are those that are simple not and will never be; its just plain not in thier DNA! .

 

[Mambo Dave]

I've been off of Commercial with a buddy, multiple times, in conditions (with surges) so bad that even those equated to solo dives for most of the time spent out past the pier. (When the lightning starts hitting the water, hand the dive flag rope over to your buddy or tie it off to something other than coral on the bottom.)

In building up my skills and training time, I kinda always liked the not-deep-but-nasty diving a ways off of the beach. If a diver can do it all (hunt, navigate, search and recover, drills, etc.) in the low-vis surge, by and large alone, in ~14 to 20 feet of water, to me that's better preparation than good-weather divers going deeper with groups.

I've met people certified higher than me who were dodgy divers - I think this stemmed from diving with groups and off of dive boats (so, fair weather divers) instead of pushing themselves into challenging conditions and difficult tasks.

On its nicest, clearest & flattest days a solo beach dive off of Commercial Beach really doesn't seem like it should require anywhere near 100 hours/dives/hamburgers to attempt and have fun with.

 

[Walter]

On its nicest, clearest & flattest days a solo beach dive off of Commercial Beach really doesn't seem like it should require anywhere near 100 hours/dives/hamburgers to attempt and have fun with.

On perfect days, in perfect conditions where nothing goes wrong, anyone can dive solo anywhere. The rub comes when things do go wrong or conditions turn sour quickly. If you can't handle the dive solo in poor conditions with things going wrong, don't attempt is solo in the best of conditions. You'll probably get away with it, but "probably" is a terrible way to plan a dive.

 

[Mambo Dave]

On perfect days, in perfect conditions where nothing goes wrong, anyone can dive solo anywhere. The rub comes when things do go wrong or conditions turn sour quickly. If you can't handle the dive solo in poor conditions with things going wrong, don't attempt is solo in the best of conditions. You'll probably get away with it, but "probably" is a terrible way to plan a dive.

"Planning" is the way to dive - that would include knowing the weather, surge and current, would it not?

'Probably' - the term can be used in 'The dive boat will probably find me at the end of my dive and not require me to swim back a mile to shore.' Are we to also to not allow divers onto dive boats who haven't built up the muscle to get them back to shore under their own power? That would take out at least half of Scubaboard from what I've seen.

It's going to be a risk no matter what. The individual diver will know if they've got the strength to kick out and back, navigation skills and such based on previous dives with buddies, and if they have the sense they were supposed to be born with they're not going to just jump in there solo at dive #6.

Some of the best divers I've ever met were diving solo at lower dive numbers than I care to mention here.

I've said my piece for those newer divers who were / are wondering. You're always going to have a contingent of divers who attempt to sell the sport off as an extreme, death-defying activity (hence the ghey skeleton-depicted-diving T-shirts). It can be that, but as you were taught in dive classes - planning makes the dive.

In part, I guess, it depends on just what a diver is doing on their dives with buddies. A lot of us have gone out with multiple buddies not to look at the reefs or fish, but to just find a place on the bottom and do drills and task management. A wannna-be solo diver, from my perspective, will have done those dives. Darwin-award hopefuls will have skipped them.

 

[DebbyDiver]

My two cents (and from someone who dives solo!): weather can change down here at any time.

Figure 20-30 minute swim out to the reef (if you're going to the good parts), 90 minutes or so underwater, 20-30 minutes back...you could be out there for 2-1/2 hours! Things can change DRASTICALLY in that period of time. If you go out and it's a really nice day, please don't be complacent.

Way back when I was still teaching, I used to hate taking students out for their certification dives on perfect days. I just never knew if they would be able to handle a little weather. The ones who did great in 4' seas and current? I felt very confident signing their c-cards. Don't let good conditions lull you into a sense of false security.